Chapin: Guns, Children Don't Mix

The Orange County Chairman Outlined Her Agenda To Help Protect Youths From Gun Violence.

October 1, 1997|By Cory Lancaster of The Sentinel Staff

Orange County Chairman Linda Chapin will join Dade County's mayor in pushing for state legislation that would make it harder for kids to get their hands on guns, she said Tuesday night.

In her seventh annual State of the County speech, Chapin said she will lobby next spring for three changes in state law that likely will stir up controversy in the gun-control arena.

Chapin wants a new law requiring all handguns to be sold with child-safety trigger locks in Florida.

She wants to prohibit Floridians from purchasing more than one handgun a month - a move she said might stop some people from turning around and selling weapons on the black market. Currently, there is no limit on gun purchases.

And she will try to increase the penalty for juveniles caught with handguns in open view.

Guns are the ''most deadly public health threat our kids face today,'' she said, quoting a study by The Carter Center in Atlanta.

In Orange County, guns killed nine times more children and adults younger than 25 than heroin overdoses during the past 3 1/2 years. But the heroin overdoses brought national attention to the Orlando area, she said.

''We must take steps now to significantly reduce the gun violence that is killing our children. . . . There are solutions to this problem and in my last year of office, I am determined to help find them,'' Chapin said.

For the first time since she took office, Chapin's State of the County speech was videotaped in advance and aired on TV. In past years, she spoke live at the Expo Centre in downtown Orlando.

She began the 30-minute speech by saying the TV format allowed her to reach a larger audience. Not surprisingly, she used the airtime to urge residents to vote yes on the county's upcoming sales-tax referendum, devoting almost as much time to that issue as to her agenda for her final year in office.

In two weeks, ballots will be mailed to the county's 370,000 registered voters asking whether they would pay an extra penny in sales tax to improve schools, roads and other public facilities.

The ballots must be returned to the Supervisor of Elections Office by 7 p.m. Nov. 4, when they will be counted. If approved, the tax would last for 10 years and raise $2.2 billion.

Another big theme in Chapin's speech was growth. County planners will revise the county's long-range growth plan in the coming year, providing an opportunity to influence how Orange County will look in 25 years. For example, she wants to adopt strong growth restrictions to prevent urban sprawl from occurring east of the environmentally sensitive Econlockhatchee River in east Orange.

''Surely everyone agrees that there should be some limits to the pressures of growth,'' she said. ''It's time to draw a line in the sandy banks of the Econ River.''

But it may be her position on guns and youths that brings the most attention in her final year. The same legislative agenda was first proposed earlier this summer by Alex Penelas, mayor of Metro-Dade County, where 52 children and 550 adults were killed by handguns last year. Dade officials welcome her support.

''Anytime you have the chief elected officials from the large urban areas asking collectively for something in the Legislature, you're more effective,'' said Joe Ramallo, a policy analyst for Penelas.

Penelas lost a battle in the Legislature last spring to exempt Dade from the state Carlucci Act, which says only the state Legislature - not local governments - can adopt gun-control measures.

Political observers say the latest proposals also will bring protests from the National Rifle Association. But an NRA spokesman said he was unaware of the proposals and could not comment.

Prosecutors and law-enforcement officials said they welcome Chapin's efforts to increase public awareness about the dangers of youths and guns. But they said they would like to see more done to identify and lock up violent juvenile criminals.

For example, one of Chapin's goals is to increase the penalties for juveniles who carry guns. In her speech, she said it currently is a misdemeanor that carries ''negligible'' penalties. But carrying a concealed firearm is a felony. The misdemeanor crime applies only when a gun is carried in open view, such as in a holster, and that's a rarity, law-enforcement officials said.

They see the problem as repeat juvenile offenders who steal handguns during burglaries and use them to commit violent crimes.

''We are seeing a greater number of juvenile offenders committing armed robberies, and the offenders seem to be getting younger and younger,'' said Nancy Clark, a prosecutor who heads the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's juvenile crime division.

Added Orange County Undersheriff Rick Staly, ''The problem is not with catching these people. It's that there's no teeth in the system.''

Chapin says the handgun problem involves juvenile criminals, but it goes beyond that. During the past 3 1/2 years, murders accounted for 75 percent of the gun-related deaths in Orange County involving youths 17 and younger. But 25 percent of the deaths were accidental shootings or suicides, according to the county Medical Examiner's Office.